Chi Shangbin

Chi Shangbin (Chinese: 迟尚斌; pinyin: Chí Shàngbīn; born September 19, 1949 in Dalian, Liaoning) is a Chinese football coach and former international football player. As a player he spent his whole career playing for Liaoning before moving into management where he achieved his big break at Dalian Wanda when he won two Chinese Jia-A League titles. Since then he has managed numerous clubs in China with limited success including a very unsuccessful reign at Shenzhen Jianlibao where he constantly fought with numerous players and almost relegated the then reigning Chinese league champions. After a spell out of management he would return as the Head coach of the newly formed club Dalian Aerbin and would immediately win the third tier title with them before stepping down to become the assistant manager at the club.

Football career

Chi Shangbin played for the Liaoning Team during his entire senior football career, and was also part of the men's Chinese senior team.^[1] During his international career, he would become an integral member of the team took part the 1976 AFC Asian Cup that saw China come third. After the tournament he would become the national team's vice-captain and then later captain that lead China in the 1978 Asian Games, 1980 AFC Asian Cup and 1982 Asian Games before he would retire in 1982.

Coach career

Dalian Wanda

After he retired he would go on to be an assistant manager at Beijing Army until 1987 when he was offered the chance to be the youth manager at Japanese club Gamba Osaka where he stayed until 1995 when he returned to China to come in during the league season to become the head coach of Dalian Wanda. Under his reign he would continue to enforce Dalian's dominance within the Chinese league and in his first full season he would win the 1996 league title without losing a single game.^[2] With another league title and also winning the Coach of the year award for the second time he would leave the club at the end of the 1997 league season to instead join the Chinese Football Association's management program to study in Cologne.^[3]

Xiamen Yuanhua

For a short period Chi Shangbin would come in to help manage Sichuan Quanxing near the end of the season, however he was not offered a permanent position and would instead join second tier club Xiamen Yuanhua at the beginning of the 1999 league season. He would immediately make an impact at his new club when he would see win the league.^[4] His second season was, however not as successful and he was unable to prevent Xiamen from being relegated at the end of the 2000 league season. After this failure he would leave the club and take a position as an assistant manager for the men's Chinese football team.

Shenzhen Jianlibao

Chi Shangbin would join second tier clubs Henan Construction and Jiangsu Sainty before he would join reigning league champions Shenzhen Jianlibao in 2005 and come in to replace the highly influential Zhu Guanghu, who left to take over the Chinese national team. During Chi Shangbin's reign the team would fall from grace and could only manage a twelfth place league finish in a differcult season that saw them flirt with relegation. By the end of the season he would resign due to player power, especially from then-captain Li Weifeng and senior player Yang Chen. Chi citied that he was unhappy due to the senior players' influence over the team and excessive gambling and tried to regain control of the squad, but Li Weifeng punched out Chi's office window and Yang Chen repeatedly told Chi of the uselessness of his efforts.^[5] Despite the chaos he was able to famously lead Shenzhen to reach the semi-finals of the 2005 AFC Champions League.

Honours

As a manager

Dalian Wanda

• Chinese Jia-A League: 1996, 1997

Xiamen Yuanhua

• Chinese Jia-B League: 1999

Dalian Aerbin

• China League Two: 2010

References

External links

• Biography at sina.com